FALCOM Thread

[Blinge]

Well I'm starting to realise why people don't like Ys V..

[bottino]

But did you think burst mode and master quartz were improvements over Zero? I didn't. My problem with master quartz was that when you hit lvl 5 you get a huge boost, but now you have to stop using the thing because it doesn't gain any more exp and meanwhile you have all these extra ones that aren't gaining any exp if they aren't equipped, so...

Yeah, I meant in regards to the Sky trilogy. I don't care for burst, but I think that the master quartz was a diamond in the rough feature:lots of room for improvement and not without it's problems like you mentioned, but I find really fun using them all maxed out on a New Game+ (which reminds me another bullshit feature of Zero & Ao: locking game content behind a NG+).

ED8 keeps the GPU busy though. And the battle system isn't bad, it's just that there is no martial arts tournament or megaboss-in-a-treasure-chest to challenge you (at least not in the first one)

Crafts and (especially) S-Crafts are also way too powerful, and became exponentially more useful than Arts as well.

[Mischief Maker]

Ys IX is coming to GOG.

Hopefully NIS doesn't completely bork the port and take years to patch it to a working state.

[Blinge]

Ahaha Ys V. nothing says end-game hype development like getting to a control room and
" Adol followed the instructions Orwell gave him "

yawn. like the whole game has been..

Edit: "You have made a grievous error in coming here, and penance shall be extracted from your corpse."

THAT'S MORE LIKE IT.

Adol = original mage slayer.

[ED-057]

Review time! I just finished ED8 / ToCS part 3. I bought this game so that I could kill a whole lot of time, and it really delivered on that front. Took much longer to get through than any of the others, even without being in another language. Although a significant portion of that was probably load times. The game contains 43,000 files FFS. Maybe I should have installed it to a flash card. Oh well.

In contrast to other games in the series, and except for the very beginning, this game gives you plenty of mira to blow on every useless food/souvenir/gag item in sight plus whatever equipment you might need. You end up being more limited mainly by U-material, and sepith early on. Especially at times when you have many surplus characters in your party and need to fill up those accessory slots.

The battle system (not including giant mech battles which are a different thing) has gone in a bad direction, IMO. The game gives you too many fancy tricks and abilities, so each chapter becomes easier than the previous one. I played on "hard" but most of the bosses barely scratched me. Never once used a zeram powder. Normal encounters mostly followed a simple pattern that goes 1) "Sledgehammer!" 2) Crescent Flash 3) mop up whatever is left. Bosses were almost the same, where you just have to use orders/crafts and maybe a burst/s-break to afflict them with guard-break and they become punching bags who can't even fight back. It feels cheap, but the game also forces you to fight this way, because if you don't demolish bosses quickly then most of them will heal themselves periodically and you'll just get locked in a stalemate.

The story is the typical Falcom stuff, cranked up to self-parody levels. Not sure what else I can say about it. A series of showdowns between characters, already established as ninja masters that always have a trick up their sleeve, preceded by extremely polite trash talk. Oh, and cell phones.

Game needed more Lloyd Bannings, true hero of Crossbell.

Other things I noticed:
Machias has the best S-craft taunt. "You failed your inspection!"
An enemy that was casting Earth Pulse on itself repeatedly never actually recovered any HP (I think this applies to player characters too).
Almost every time I tried to exit the game from the title screen, it froze instead of closing and the "blahblah is not responding" dialog would appear and I'd have to close it that way. One time a dialog appeared that said it wanted to record a video of my screen to submit with an error report. I declined.
The way your character moves in the general environments has been gimped so that the running-around-talking-to-everybody-at-least-three-times mechanic is now even more painful. Although being able to warp to/from more locations makes up for it in a way. But it's no longer possible to smack a monster and then run behind it and smack it again. Not that that is needed, since certain characters in the lead position can bash an enemy head-on and give you a double-advantage anyway. Or you can press a different button and get a guaranteed triple-advantage when the associated guage is full (which it always is).
In chapter 3, there were scenes that showed a full moon, and one that showed a half-moon on the same day.

The ending was garbage, even worse than ED8 part 1 (which BTW, was part of the reason I skipped ED8 part 2 altogether). It also included about 15 minutes of loading (no joke) and a video to roll the credits which froze a few seconds in.

[Squire Grooktook]

Ys 1 and 2 Nightmare - done
Ys Ark, Oath, and Origin Nightmare - done

Replaying Oath again now. I used to think Origin had the better bosses, and while Oath does have a lot of memorizer hatefuck moments, I find it's easier to learn how to make the fights fun (after some time practicing them in boss rush mode) as opposed to Origin where a good few bosses are crippled due to dumb healing gimmicks or half the cast being wonky to fight them with. Also Ark of Napishtim gets too much hate imo. People talking about it made me think it was some half-playable janky prototype of Oath, but while it isn't as cool as those games it's still great and has some original ideas and fun things of its own that makes it worth playing for fans of the other two.

Played a little Brandish 2 in pc98 emulator too. Treated as a sort of dungeon crawl / resident evil hybrid, it's quite excellent. Tank controls in 2d, inventory management, and staking out safe rooms to rest in and manage items. Pretty fun.

[Sumez]

Ys 6 isn't a disaster or anything (outside of the choppy performance), there's just very little reason to play it. Oath is a game I'd recommend to anyone.

[Squire Grooktook]

The core reason to play it is "I already finished both Oath and Origin more than once and want some new content in that style of play". I'd recommend it to fans of those games who just want more.

That being said I don't think Oath is just Ark+1. Ark has a few charming points of its own. I like that the elemental trinity equivalent gives you a new moveset, and that the spells work more like limit breaks, imposing more focus on hack and slash. I like some of the enemy types, which can be quite devious, and I like some of the dungeon layouts (the watery cave could hang with ys 1 and 2 for how confusing a maze it is).

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ys 6 isn't a disaster or anything (outside of the choppy performance), there's just very little reason to play it. Oath is a game I'd recommend to anyone.

If Ark performs choppily on your PC (I assume it's much younger a device than the game itself), something's wrong with your setup. On my WinXP Pro PC at least, anti-aliasing is the only thing hampering the performance if on (still talking about Ark, whereas in, say, OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast - much more demanding on video card than Ark - makes very little difference whether it's on or off). Without anti-aliasing it's all smooth sailing. Some pretty old PC games don't take hardware anti-aliasing well on systems much more powerfull than "recommended" on the box - is all. For instance - Mashed: Fully Loaded, when rendering smoke, struggles with anti-aliasing. In Ark, the first bossfight reveals that it doesn't like anti-aliasing. That's just the way some PC games are.

What I like particularly about Ark is the game's world. Hidden areas, places you can't seem access yet but you know there must be a way to get there (and some reward to be found there). It feels "bigger" than Origins and Oath to me in a way computer games tried to be vs console games way back when (with varying degree of success, but here it works for me). Another semi-recently played computer game I feel this way about is Captain Claw. Bassicaly a linear action platformer most obviously not intended to be cleared in one sitting, which I suppse alienates former NES kids, using a very unusual savestating system that's not really explained in game, which must have alienated some computer kids too, but if you're the kind of person who enjoys "secrets" in games, hidden areas etc. - it simply is colossal. And it's NOT a Metroidvania. (May look no-hum on screenshots because of the lo-res backgrounds scaled up to 640x480, then filtered, but the graphics are as advanced spritework as action games ever got in 2D - animations this complex and numerous are something I've only seen in 1vs1 games done with hand-drawn sprites.

Come to think of it - on a console, Demon's Souls does it (beefy world thing), but came out in a greatly different context, technologically and game design-wise (differences between console and computer gaming shrunk, arcade gaming closed in a reservation, mobile getting real mainstream).

[Sumez]

If Ark performs choppily on your PC (I assume it's much younger a device than the game itself), something's wrong with your setup.

Lol imagine playing games on a PC XD

[Obiwanshinobi]

There's indeed little reason to play Ys on anything else than a PC.

[Sumez]

Well wanting to play it in English would be a good primary reason

[Obiwanshinobi]

Therefore understanding story/dialogue is one reason to play Ark.

[Squire Grooktook]

Ys 6 is on pc in english, yee. So are most games in the franchise that are in english at all as far as I know.

Also when I replayed Origin on nightmare with all characters last summer, I at the time wrote up and saved an analysis of all characters. I heard BIL was playing Origin for the first time now, so I figured I'd post it now while I'm back posting here again:


Yunica

Spoiler

As the Adol 2.0 function, Yunica plays as enjoyably as you'd expect. Lots of running, hacking, jumping, slashing fun. If you're familiar with the playstyle of these games, you know the drill. One of the biggest improvements to her over Adol is that her projectile skill actually feels fun and rewarding to use now thanks to increased width of its charged version, turning it into a massive sweeping wave that's easy to hit with and pushes enemies into more damage rather than out of it like Adols irritatingly inconsistent fire bomb. Her i-frame maneuver is still just as effective for avoiding and dealing damage simultaneously, so between these options and a slightly more mobile spin attack, she ends up having the most balanced and varied moveset of the game. The only problem with Yunica is that on nightmare difficulty, the bosses were clearly balanced with Toal in mind: her slightly slower speed compared to him means she's forced to rely entirely on her i-frame maneuver for avoiding certain attacks, and she can get trapped a lot easier, leading to some of the most frustrating encounters in the game.

Hugo

Spoiler

Easily the least fun of all three characters. Hugo's combination of safe ranged attacks in a melee focused game and a rechargeable shield that he can hide behind for ages makes him by far the least engaging character to play. His first battle with Epona makes it seem like he'll have to manage his shield and meter carefully to compensate for his lack of speed (as a good wizarding boy should), but then he gets a speed boost like everyone else and loses any need to put thought into fights. Not helping matters is that not only are his skills overpowered, they're also simply boring: you might expect playing an overpowered wizard character would at least offer some flashy fun in conjuring the elements and sweeping the battlefield with overwhelming torrents of flame and thunder, but Hugo's kit basically consists of "SHOT", "LASER", "BOMB", and "FORCE FIELD". In other words, he's not a wizard, he's a space ship with a fuccboi haircut.

Toal

Spoiler

Overall the best in the game. While not as polished or balanced as Adol 2.0 (Yunica), Toal capitalizes on what Ys does best: movement. Out of all the characters he has the highest move speed, attack speed, and an absolutely wicked dash skill that lets him zip around to close in, punish, and flank enemies like it's some sort of character action game. Toal's gameplay is just explosive right out the bat, and the developers seem to have had this ultra mobile and fast playstyle in mind when designing the game, since his boss fights feel the most flexible and fair whilst still perfectly challenging. Perhaps the only flaw with Toal is that his second and third skills might overshadow the raucous starter dash skill if one is dedicated to playing safely or efficiently, but it still has plenty of uses and switching skills frequently for style feels rewarding in itself. By far the most fun and exciting campaign to play.

At the time I also wrote up an analysis of the story, which I doubt most here would be interested in reading. To summarize, I think Yunica is unironically the best and I actually genuinely like her plot. She's an endearingly adorable little retard and her storyline has a cute little Heroes Journey vibe going on (right down to "The Cave" IE getting her father's sword in her lowest moment). Also feels like it has the most teeth out of all the plots since she loses the most people close to her, so the fairy tale "I choose to stay" ending feels well earned.

In comparison Hugo lacks character development till the final dungeon and spends 9/10th's of the game unlikable, and Toal never gets any character development at all. Toal's story is also a bit toothless as well with almost every bad thing being averted and tied up with a neat little bow.

So in summation:

Gameplay:
Toal > Yunica > Hugo

Story:
Yunica > Toal > Hugo

[Blinge]

Hugo does not have a fuccboi haircut.

Hugo has a stay with the same woman for 20 years then get cheaten on haircut.

[BIL]

Ys 6 is on pc in english, yee. So are most games in the franchise that are in english at all as far as I know.

Also when I replayed Origin on nightmare with all characters last summer, I at the time wrote up and saved an analysis of all characters. I heard BIL was playing Origin for the first time now, so I figured I'd post it now while I'm back posting here again:

Appreciated! Like a stubborn/wistful asshole, I decided to try Hugo first, on the vague recollection of someone saying "ITS LIKE SHOCK TROOPERS" It's nothing like Shock Troopers. At least not at the outset! That would imply strafing, close-quarters slashing, and rolling that's as much for stickin' em real good as dodging. Also, AUTOFIRE

However, I'm liking its buzzsawing Oathesque hop n' drop well enough! Got to the second boss, before getting distracted by a Bunch Of Other Shit (Blaster Master Zero II's excellence really surprised me, then it turned out SOTN's PS4 version was actually 99% alright).

Wondering if I should jack in Hugo and restart as Yunica. TBH I'm kinda bromo for Dark Fact that's why I REALLY picked Hugo

[Blinge]

Wondering if I should jack in Hugo and restart as Yunica.

100%

lol i just realised I said " cheaten " in my last post. that's not a word. I just invented a new irregular verb form.. new language is born folks, and it sucks.

[Vanguard]

I recommend switching over. Hugo isn't unpleasant or anything but he really does not capture what makes Ys Origin good.

Story:
Yunica > Toal > Hugo

Toal has the worst story. He's a horrible protagonist. He acts like an edgelord, but it becomes very obvious after about 5 minutes that he's never going to actually do anything edgy, and that's insanely lame. Yet every character on both sides of the conflict insists that he's the coolest guy in the world.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah I'd second switching.

The order I played the game in was:

Yunica (hard mode) -> Toal (hard mode)
(1-2 years later)
Yunica (Nightmare Mode) -> Hugo (Nightmare Mode) -> Toal (Nightmare Mode)

Hugo is best for a more casual, lazy sort of playthrough wherein you already know the game pretty well and you're going for quickie EZ run for completionism. I did try to like him for both the FACT CLAN allusion and also for a more *~Magical Vacation Dracula~*-esque experience of OP wizardry, but his attacks are a little too awkward to use (between the lack of autofire and strafing) and lack the style and impact that'd characterize an Iga toybox.

This is totally off topic, but personally my favorite and most memorable execution of a "Wizard" type archetype in an action game is Thanos from Marvel Vs Capcom 2. A girthy but limited character without his precious super meter built (up to six stocks), but once he's charged up expect him to casually chuck several celestial bodies at you, cathartically burning through all that saved power with the savor of sweet tension release.

Toal has the worst story. He's a horrible protagonist. He acts like an edgelord, but it becomes very obvious after about 5 minutes that he's never going to actually do anything edgy, and that's insanely lame. Yet every character on both sides of the conflict insists that he's the coolest guy in the world.

I feel you. The big problem with Toal's story is that it starts out setting up a redemption arc, which would have been cool, but midway through it utterly chickens out with a "he was really good all along!" undercover agent twist.

I actually have to wonder if this was a last minute rewrite, because even replaying it with full knowledge, the reveal is really jarring. It borderlines on a Heavy Rain tier twist in terms of Toal outright or nearly lying to the audience through his own early narration, and it renders a lot of story elements like the Ys Knights mercy and compassion towards him ("I know there's still good in you!" type stuff) narratively pointless.

The only part of his story I kinda like is his interactions with the goddesses, but otherwise he's simply bland. Bland, inoffensive, and easily ignored, which is why I put him slightly above Hugo. Hugo starts amusing via his banter with Epona (which is more fun standing in contrast to Yunica's interactions with her), but his angst is dragged out far too long and ultimately grows outright irritating. He doesn't get any real character development away from it till the final dungeon, and by that time it's far too late to effectively demonstrate any real change of heart.

[Sumez]

Yunica seems like the only character to really engage in the actual gameplay in Origin.
I guess you could say Hugo is more strategy-based? But his approach to the game seems to be mostly just keep a distance, and it makes the already very same'y enemies become even more of the same, where it really doesn't matter if you're fighting one thing or another because the approach is the same.
Still had fun though.

Ys 6 is on pc in english, yee. So are most games in the franchise that are in english at all as far as I know.

The English PC version didn't come out until recently, more than a decade after the original release.
This is actually the first time I've heard anyone even talking about the PC version, the game has always been notorious for its absurdly choppy frameware because of the console versions. Fortunately that was fixed completely for Felghana despite running on basically the same engine, but also having a lot more going on.

[Blinge]

Yunica seems like the only character to really engage in the actual gameplay in Origin.
I guess you could say Hugo is more strategy-based? But his approach to the game seems to be mostly just keep a distance, and it makes the already very same'y enemies become even more of the same, where it really doesn't matter if you're fighting one thing or another because the approach is the same.
Still had fun though.

I believe i made things more fun for myself when using Hugo on normal by not using projectile spam as much... running round/through/kiting groups of enemies and laying bombs everywhere was pretty cool.

The English PC version didn't come out until recently, more than a decade after the original release.
This is actually the first time I've heard anyone even talking about the PC version, the game has always been notorious for its absurdly choppy frameware because of the console versions. Fortunately that was fixed completely for Felghana despite running on basically the same engine, but also having a lot more going on.

Oh, PC runs absolutely fine on my potato from 2013.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yunica seems like the only character to really engage in the actual gameplay in Origin.

Nah, Toal does too. Let's not get into any anti-Toal sentiments here: writing flaws aside, his gameplay is fucking spectacular and I'd say he's overall more fun than Yunica.

His Vacuum Claw might be a little strong against certain mobs, but those aren't really the hardest parts of the game anyway, and it's not that strong (saying he doesn't engage with the gameplay is a massive stretch). Not to mention Yunica's got advantages over him of her own: her Pheonix Wave means she doesn't need to get in close if she's not inclined to*, and the Vacuum Claw does not have i-frames/guard property like her hammer smash does.

I find on Nightmare Mode the endgame mobs (Blighted Blood and Demonic Core) are pretty engaging and nasty as long as you're not playing as Hugo. In fact I think the Demonic Core is kind of poorly designed on Nightmare: in some rooms there's so much shit flying around on every movement axis that you need to play really lame and/or abuse i-frames skills if you don't want to tank through it like a euroshmup.


* I actually really love how different yet perfectly balanced the Kishgal fight is for Yunica vs Toal. With Yunica, it's like a Senko No Ronde fight, trading fire waves and icicle danmaku from opposite sides of the arena. With Toal, it's all about playing hit and run up close with his superior mobility.

[Sumez]

I didn't comment on Toal specifically because I don't even remember what he played like.

[Squire Grooktook]

He likes to go fast

But yeah I feel you. It's really a combination of little things with Hugo.

>Can hide behind his shield basically forever if he wants to
>Moves just as fast as Yunica and has better range anyway, so he doesn't even really need a shield
>Lots of awkwardness with his control scheme. No autofire, no strafing, combine that with the constant skill charge button multitasking and you have a recipe for sore fingers despite still having little risk attached to his gameplay

It's actually fun to brainstorm ways to fix his gameplay though. Personally I just wish his earth and fire skills were flashier and cooler. Keep the shield, make him slower and more meter management intensive, and maybe make it so his second and third skills are cooler and more destructive (summon meteors? summon fire dragon? cmon, you're a wizard! Do something cool! Elemental Master on the Mega Drive had a flashier end-game spell kit!) but in exchange lock him in place for a few moments whilst chanting and only trigger i-frames on successful activation (Reisz has this mechanic with her summons in the Seiken 3 remake. It's really satisfying to time a cast just right so that the summon will pop and save you from eating a hit on the last possible frame).

[Vanguard]

Yeah against common enemies, Yunica has to engage even less than Hugo does. I just pretend her fire spell doesn't exist most of the time.

The only part of his story I kinda like is his interactions with the goddesses, but otherwise he's simply bland. Bland, inoffensive, and easily ignored, which is why I put him slightly above Hugo.

A "nothing personnel kid" character who is also a gigantic poser is offensive to me.

Yunica seems like the only character to really engage in the actual gameplay in Origin.
I guess you could say Hugo is more strategy-based? But his approach to the game seems to be mostly just keep a distance, and it makes the already very same'y enemies become even more of the same, where it really doesn't matter if you're fighting one thing or another because the approach is the same.
Still had fun though.

Nothing strategic about hiding behind your force field all day. Hugo's just the baby difficulty character. I had the most fun with him when using his bomb spell. It's a little bit risky since you're getting up close and aren't spending your magic on the shield, and its damage wasn't too bad.

[Sumez]

Nothing strategic about hiding behind your force field all day.

That's still a strategy.

[Blinge]

I didn't comment on Toal specifically because I don't even remember what he played like.

shoulda mentioned that!

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah against common enemies, Yunica has to engage even less than Hugo does. I just pretend her fire spell doesn't exist most of the time.

What? No! The flame wave isn't even OP (especially not compared to Hugo "good luck I'm behind 3 shields and don't even have to stop moving while I shoot" Fact), but is a very versatile and fun tool (give 'em the 3 hit combo WACK, use the flame wave as a finisher to push 'em out of range of a counter attack, then re-engage!). Yunica without fire bird would be a lot less fun, and she's overall the hardest nightmare clear regardless.

In terms of difficulty my ranking for Nightmare would be:

Yunica > Toal >>>>>>>>>> Hugo

Although worth noting that the biggest part of Yunica being a harder campaign than Toal's is that her slower move speed makes Gelady and Dalles x10 harder. She can't consistently outrun Gelady's punches so she has to meter manage to guard-skill through almost every one of them, and Dalles can trap her really easy with bad rng. Toal's faster speed makes both fights more flexible, while Hugo just doesn't give a fuck due to shields.

[Vanguard]

Is Toal's normal move speed faster than the other two or are you just talking about the dash move? Been a while since I played Origin.

What? No!

It's fine if you use it up close. The problem is that you can snipe with it from 100 miles away and normal enemies don't get a chance to do anything.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I believe full English fan-translations of the PC Ys games (and a couple of others from Falcom) were readily-available sice way long before Steam versions. Some requiring a switch to Jaspanese letters in Windows, not a biggie overall.